National system of final exams should not be shelved outright
National system of final exams should not be shelved outright
Ardimas Sasdi, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post,
Berkeley, California, ajambak@calmail.berkeley.edu
The fate of the national final exams for high schools, or UAN
-- the main yardstick used to measure the performance of
individual students and gauge the general quality of education --
is in limbo ahead of the examinations next month.
The movement evolved last year after the Ministry of Education
unveiled a plan to raise the passing grade for the almost
20-year-old exams by one point from the existing 3.01 to a 4.01
average. A group of more than 20 non-government organizations
gave the government a week to shelve the plan to hold the annual
tests or face a lawsuit. This ultimatum is the toughest challenge
yet faced by the government on standardized testing.
The critics, who consist of teachers' associations, private
schools and education experts, say in a series of arguments that
the planned UAN is in violation of National Education Law 2003
and is against the spirit of reform and the principles of
decentralization.
Former rector of the Jakarta Teachers' Training Institute
Prof. Winarno Surakhmad told Kompas last week the final tests
should be conducted by schools and that nationwide testing could
be done every three to five years if its goal were to get a map
of schools' performance. As a regulator of education the
government would serve only as a facilitator of the test, not as
an organizer, he said.
According to Article 2 of Ministry of Education decree No.
153/2003, the final national exam, which is held simultaneously
across the country, is aimed to collect information about the
achievement of individual students and the quality of education
as part of public accountability.
Article 3 says the testing is necessary as a means of quality
control and as a selection criteria for students who will pursue
their studies in higher education.
In line with the program of regional autonomy, the central
government has gradually delegated its authority on education in
certain areas, including organizing final exams for primary and
secondary schools. This year's UAN, for example, covers only
math, English, and the Indonesian language, while the rest are
prepared by schools under the guidance of district education
offices.
Education expert Arief Rachman, who is also chief of Unesco's
national commission for Indonesia, said the final say on whether
students pass the tests should stay in the hands of schools. He
said he was aware some schools raised their grades to maintain
their reputation and ward off criticism from the public.
The plan to raise a passing grade for the final tests at
junior and senior high schools to an average of 4.01 from 3.01
for all subjects has sparked worries among many students and
their parents but has been praised by others, who have long
queried the low passing score, saying it degraded the
examinations. With a 3.01 passing score most students pass the
finals.
The list of UAN shortcomings is long and many are valid. One
weakness is that the test is not tailored to different regional
conditions. There are big disparities from one region to another
in terms of physical infrastructure -- school buildings,
libraries and laboratories -- the ratio of students to teachers
and the wealth of students.
A one-shot, high-pressure exam is not only unfair, it also
fails to provide accurate information about the ability of
students as their performances during the exams are not just
influenced by their preparation and ability to take exams but
also by the state of mind of their exam invigilators and other
technical problems.
These factors are usually not taken into account -- the
scoring is done by computers, while the impact of failing the
exams on students is devastating. Leading author and antitesting
advocate Alfie Kohn in a book The Schools Our Children Deserve
said students who failed from an early age are likely to avoid
challenging tasks, lose interest in academic matters and think in
terms of ability rather than effort. Failing also engendered a
feeling of incompetence, if not helplessness.
The history of nationwide testing at junior and senior high
schools is as long and controversial as the background of its
birth.
The government abolished the national tests in the 1970s in
response to a public outcry, which questioned the low percentage
of students who passed the final exams. But it reinstated the
test in the 1980s after improving their design and organization
to improve the degrading quality of education at schools in many
areas.
Ever since, reports have indicated an improvement in the
quality of education in the country, especially at public
secondary schools where over 60 percent of around 16 million
students are enrolled. So remarkable is the progress that some
public schools are now competing with and even surpassing top
private schools run by Catholic and Protestant foundations, which
are used as a barometer of education standards.
Not ignoring the proven role of the UAN in improving the
quality of education and its noble motive to raise the average
test score, the government must be honest and admit that many
things need to be done to improve the testing. A one-point rise
is still beyond the reach of many schools in the country.
The fears of students and their parents are reasonable and as
a short-term solution the government needs to consider lowering
the average pass or reverting to the original 3.01 score. In the
long-run the government must establish an authoritative
certification agency and an accreditation body for secondary
schools like the National Accreditation Body for higher
education, which has a duty to assess colleges and universities
and report their progress regularly to the public stake holders.
The UAN is undoubtedly not perfect -- but it's not a bad
option either. While the government is wise to listen to the
voice of the people, it must not shelve the exam finals until a
better alternative is found or a new mechanism of quality control
is put in place.
The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of
Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley.